This invention relates to a system and equipment for reducing and controlling dust accumulation in the working area where drilling or blasting occurs in forming an underground mine or mine-like tunnel. During a conventional mining operation, such as digging a tunnel or shaft for removing ore or coal or digging a tunnel for passage through a mountain considerable quantities of dust may be produced in the area of the drilling operation. The dust accumulation in the air can be hazardous to the miners or workmen in the tunnel, block visibility in the work area, and otherwise interfere with the tunnel digging work.
In typical mining operations, blasting or drilling the end of a tunnel produces large quantities of “muck” or debris. Dust tends to settle in this muck. Thus, when the muck is removed by shoveling or scooping, the disturbance creates dust from the muck. The dust “tends to form” a dense “cloud” in the working area.
In the past, some efforts have been made to reduce or control the dust accumulation in the work or drilling area by providing a water supply hose and a workman to manipulate and control the hose for spraying the area and the muck with water to settle the dust. This task of manipulating a water hose to spray the drilling area or other collections of muck carrying dust is difficult and can become hazardous, particularly where it is necessary for the workman who is handling the hose to be exposed within a dusty area for a relatively long time. Moreover, it is inefficient to use a skilled miner, who otherwise would be involved in the digging or drilling or blasting operation, to spend time manipulating the hose for dispersing any particular dust accumulation.
Since the immediate digging site typically includes equipment and people, a spray hose which is not hand-held may be contacted, or knocked over, by the moving equipment or miners. Hence, the present invention involves a system and equipment which can provide directed sprays in the dusty work area with little labor or effort and without the need for a workman holding or manipulating a water hose. This invention is concerned with providing a way of manually, temporarily positioning and directing a water hose spray within the mine tunnel drilling area in a way that the hose cannot be accidentally displaced or damaged and does not require hand-holding, and wherein the hose may be quickly and easily, without tools, manually moved to, and held at, different locations as needed, by minimal labor.